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Sunday, November 06, 2016

Here's another one of those shows I feel like I'm the only one who bothered to remember. Denver, the Last Dinosaur is an animated series that aired very briefly during the late '80s -- and I think one of the reasons I'm aware of it is because they happened to show the whole run a year or so later in Saudi Arabia when I was a kid. What I remember most is the theme song describing the main character -- an intelligent dinosaur -- as "my friend -- and a whole lot more." Uh, a whole lot more? The show was a like the result of a focus group session gone horribly wrong. Don't believe me? Here, watch this:

I think the bull session that resulted in its creation went something like this:

I really can't figure out what this thing was about. A group of TV-diverse kids, Wally, Mario, Jesse, and Shades (who -- wait for it -- wears shades), find a perfectly preserved dinosaur egg, out of which pops an cute, anthropomorphic dino who they name Denver, because reasons. Each episode, the group got into wacky adventures with their dino-pal while trying to keep him out of the hands of authorities by dressing him up in bulky clothing and having him for a kid. Oh, they were also trying to save him from the evil record producer who wanted him in his band. Yeah, I don't know either.

Debuting in syndication in September of '88, Denver, the Last Dinosaur aired new episodes all the way until...November of that same year. So, two whole months. I know, I know, I'm just as shocked as you that the show didn't have a long and healthy life, but I am surprised that it actually made it to fifty episodes, which is a little bit shy of the 65 episode threshold most syndicateds of the era got, but way, way longer than you'd think something like could have lasted. Nonetheless, there's fifty whole episodes out there, and now you can watch every single one of them on DVD.